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Things Reconsidered
April
20, 2003
by
Alexander Washburn
Burnin'
and a Lootin'
This morning I woke up in a curfew
O God, I was a prisoner, too
Could not recognize the faces standing over me
They were all dressed in uniforms of brutality
(That's why we gonna be) Burnin' and a-lootin' tonight
Burning' all illusion tonight – Bob Marley
It's a shame to see respected politicians and "major"
news organizations slapping the Bush administration on
the wrists for the post-Saddam looting that gripped Baghdad.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whose press
conferences are not only condescending but, in some cases,
bordering on impeachable offenses, cared very little.
Rumsfeld told a press corps, which hangs and laughs at
his every word, "Freedom is untidy. And free people
are free to commit mistakes and to commit crimes."
This caused the New York Times, which is just looking
for a fight, to launch it's own decapitation strike at
Rumsfeld and the Bush administration. It seems that folks
on W. 43rd Street believe looting is a weapon of destruction
and they used these isolated and relatively harmless events
to once again take a swipe at the Bush administration's
foreign policy. The Times writes that looting: "was
not the vision of freedom the Bush administration was
selling when it began this enterprise and it is not necessarily
one the Iraqi people would welcome."
Talk about crying wolf! With the exception of New York,
in this country every city whose team has won a championship
has rioting and looting. Just last week, the AP reported
New Hampshire and Minnesota fans from the "NCAA hockey
championship threw bottles and rocks, smashed store windows"
and set fires in separate outbreaks of violence that resulted
in more than 100 arrests and over a dozen injuries. All
told this domestic looting resulted in thousands of dollars
in damages, including a $450,000 TV truck belonging to
a station with a reporter embedded at the Frozen Four.
We're still waiting for the Times editorial blasting the
policies of Walter Mondale and former New Hampshire governor
Jeanne Shaheen that led to those domestic policy failures.
Or perhaps the Times is sharpening up its pencil to condemn
former President Clinton on his embrace of Haitian President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whose presidency has been
far from riot-free.
It's quite understandable that looting was the last thing
on the mind of Rumsfeld. After all, Rumsfeld and President
Bush are too busy and frantic searching for a justification
for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Save me the "people
have been liberated" line that Fox News' Shepard
Smith is selling. While news of Iraqi military captures
are great for the Julie Banderas' and Lester Holt's
of the world – the rest of America is still waiting
for that bounty of weapons of mass destruction to be found.
The President laid out a pretty strong case in his State
of the Union Address in January, even getting Al Gore-like
with the numbers. In that speech Bush told the American
people, unequivocally, that Saddam Hussein has "biological
weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of Anthrax
– enough doses to kill several million people."
Bush also said that Saddam has "more than 38,000
liters of botulinum toxin, enough to subject millions
of people to death by respiratory failure," and that
U.S. intelligence indicated "30,000 munitions capable
of delivering chemical agents." To date, no significant
amounts of Anthrax or botulinum toxin have been found,
and even though we regrettably lost innocent lives in
this war, we haven't come near approaching the apocalyptic
numbers Bush warned the American people Saddam was capable
of killing.
Of
course, the Whopper with cheese is the Iraq-al-Qaeda
link that the White House is desperately trying to
establish. It is surprising that it has taken so long
since the President in that same January speech said,
"Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications
and statements by people already now in custody reveal
that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists including
members of al-Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints,
he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists,
or help them develop their own" Let me guess, these
are the same secret communications that produced two unsuccessful
strikes aimed at killing Saddam. Of perhaps, Bush is just
getting the same information from the people that told
him Saddam had all those weapons in the first place? Quite
simply, it's hard to believe that Saddam can sell something
he doesn't have.
Brother,
Can you Spare $3.8 Billion?
Here on the home front, Bush has an inbox full with
pressing problems that are surely going to sink him, just
like it did his father. Bush claimed his economic plan
was based on creating jobs – but unemployment has
risen consistently since he took office, with now slightly
under eight million Americans out of work. In February
and March alone, the US economy lost 465,000 jobs. The
stock market and consumer confidence are also on the decline.
Bush already fired the three men responsible for his 2001
round of tax cuts for the rich, a plan that did nothing
positive at all for the economy, and the men who replaced
the economic team have spent the last months promoting
the new Bush tax cuts, only to have the President back
off them this week.
Like this space predicted, President Bush left the marriage
penalty on the table but the much-despised boon for the
rich, the cuts to corporate-dividend taxes, which
were estimated to cost about $400 billion were tabled.
However, the mere fact that the President had to back
off his tax cut is evidence that Bush never had a clear
economic vision for this country that didn't extend beyond
paying back his rich campaign contributors. Even though
the tax cut is now $175 billion dollars smaller, it's
still geared toward the rich and will produce deficits
that future generations will have to pay. Writing in the
London Guardian, business editor Mark Tran echoed
this point, writing: "The Bush tax cuts benefit mainly
the rich, who probably already spend as much as they like.
The tax cuts will increase already huge budget deficits,
which is why economists would have preferred a short-term
stimulus plan for one that implies vast amounts of red
ink for years to come. The tax plan is the worst of both
worlds for Mr. Bush – not much stimulus, yet bigger
deficits." And to think, just a few years ago, Newt
Gingrich and the Republican Party got elected on a platform
that included a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution.
It should worry Karl Rove and Company that the
President has officially become his father – a recent
poll revealed that 46% of the American public disapproves
of Bush's handling of domestic economic affairs.
The
economic action (or inaction) by the Bush White House
has only made it worse for state and local governments.
Here in New York, thanks to fiscal wizardry of America's
Mayor Rudy Guiliani, the City faces drastic cuts that
will remind New Yorkers of the Ed Koch days. Current mayor
Mike Bloomberg just announced the cuts he will
have to make unless cash-strapped Governor George Pataki
comes through with the $3.8 billion New York City needs
to fill the budget gap. On the cutting line are firehouses
– upwards to 40 citywide – a nice thank you
for our first responders. The New York Police Department
will now operate at its lowest level in 10 years. In addition,
City pools will not open this summer; the zoos in Brooklyn
and Queens will also close, the Bronx Zoo will receive
a significant funding reduction, and after-school programs
will be eliminated. Cuts can also be found to the budgets
of the sanitation, children services, health, and education
departments. Somehow, the people down in City Hall think
that: no pools, no after-school programs, no jobs and
no cops is a good mix. As New York Post gossip queen Cindy
Adams always says: "Only in New York, kids, only
in New York."
(Alexander Washburn is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine.)
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